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Did I hear that right? Did they say OMAP 3? I didn't know anyone was still using OMAP3 outside of charity organizations trying to provide very basic tablets to

Did I hear that right? Did they say OMAP 3? I didn't know anyone was still using OMAP3 outside of charity organizations trying to provide very basic tablets to children living in terrible conditions in the third world. Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
azernik 12y ago
My guess would be time to market, if they would otherwise have been blocking on bringup work for a better SoC. Possibly indicates a crash program late in everyone else's smartwatch development cycle?
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  That would be my guess too.... I hope it means they're working right now on something better for v2 which will improve the battery performance (which seems the biggest issue with most of the current generation of smartwatches)....
- on_and_off 12y ago
  Sadly, this could make me wait for the v2 ... I will have to check on my I/O attendees colleagues :)
joezydeco 12y ago
So what are you designing with these days and what's your typical design cycle like?
turing 12y ago
When I first read this I wondered if they might have been trying to get rid of left over processors from the Motoactv [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv
mrpippy 12y ago
Yeah this is a pretty odd choice, it would be fascinating to find out Motorola's reasoning. Motorola was comfortably TI's biggest OEM back when TI was actively pushing OMAP for smartphones. The original Droid (Milestone outside the US) through the Droid 4 were all OMAP (first OMAP3, then OMAP4) and I believe also used TI WiFi/Bluetooth. The last "flagship" Android phone to use OMAP was the Galaxy Nexus, which had Android updates stop with 4.3. It's been rumored this was because TI had stopped maintaining up-to-date kernels/drivers for use with Android. This would make it a bigger chore to bring-up the current version of Android than it would be on a current Snapdragon. Also, the OMAP3630 is just an old chip: 45nm vs. 28nm used by the other (Snapdragon 400) Android Wear watches. If I had to guess: Motorola had a bunch of OMAP3630s still left in stock (and was quoted a very good price by TI for more)
ansible 12y ago
Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch? More expensive also tends to imply more processing power, which also implies more power consumption. More is not better, considering what's going to fit on your wrist. Also, with an older platform, if they've had time to work out all the issues and greatly refine the power management (so that everything stays active for only as long as necessary), it can end up using less power than a SoC that uses a better process technology but doesn't have as good software support.
- TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
  Its not like OMAP4 is some lightly used, power-hungry, and untested platform.
  - ansible 12y ago
    It is physically larger, and costs more. It has a ton of I/O, supports high resolution cameras, can do HD video recording, encoding and decoding. So what exactly is the justification that a watch needs all that? What is the OMAP3 missing that you think a watch needs?
    - TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
      Have you seen the size of a Moto360? It is thick! The Apple Watch is much slimmer. Part of the reason for that is the SoC that Apple uses is more modern and compact than OMAP. OMAP3 isn't the best processor to use for a watch. I'm sure if we spend some time going back and forth we will identify at least one or two more modern processors that beat OMAP3 on efficiency, size, AND performance. I don't thin Motorola should be skimping on the processor for their first watch, if they are trying to convince us its a premium product that we should feel proud to wear on our wrists. People see watches as prestige items, and they will pay more for a well constructed and designed device. There's already enough competition in the plastic trashy wrist-wear segment.
      - ansible 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

azernik 12y ago

My guess would be time to market, if they would otherwise have been blocking on bringup work for a better SoC. Possibly indicates a crash program late in everyone else's smartwatch development cycle?

snogglethorpe 12y ago
That would be my guess too.... I hope it means they're working right now on something better for v2 which will improve the battery performance (which seems the biggest issue with most of the current generation of smartwatches)....
on_and_off 12y ago
Sadly, this could make me wait for the v2 ... I will have to check on my I/O attendees colleagues :)

joezydeco 12y ago

So what are you designing with these days and what's your typical design cycle like?

turing 12y ago

When I first read this I wondered if they might have been trying to get rid of left over processors from the Motoactv [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv

mrpippy 12y ago

Yeah this is a pretty odd choice, it would be fascinating to find out Motorola's reasoning. Motorola was comfortably TI's biggest OEM back when TI was actively pushing OMAP for smartphones. The original Droid (Milestone outside the US) through the Droid 4 were all OMAP (first OMAP3, then OMAP4) and I believe also used TI WiFi/Bluetooth. The last "flagship" Android phone to use OMAP was the Galaxy Nexus, which had Android updates stop with 4.3. It's been rumored this was because TI had stopped maintaining up-to-date kernels/drivers for use with Android. This would make it a bigger chore to bring-up the current version of Android than it would be on a current Snapdragon. Also, the OMAP3630 is just an old chip: 45nm vs. 28nm used by the other (Snapdragon 400) Android Wear watches. If I had to guess: Motorola had a bunch of OMAP3630s still left in stock (and was quoted a very good price by TI for more)

ansible 12y ago

Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch? More expensive also tends to imply more processing power, which also implies more power consumption. More is not better, considering what's going to fit on your wrist. Also, with an older platform, if they've had time to work out all the issues and greatly refine the power management (so that everything stays active for only as long as necessary), it can end up using less power than a SoC that uses a better process technology but doesn't have as good software support.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
Its not like OMAP4 is some lightly used, power-hungry, and untested platform.
- ansible 12y ago
  It is physically larger, and costs more. It has a ton of I/O, supports high resolution cameras, can do HD video recording, encoding and decoding. So what exactly is the justification that a watch needs all that? What is the OMAP3 missing that you think a watch needs?
  - TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
    Have you seen the size of a Moto360? It is thick! The Apple Watch is much slimmer. Part of the reason for that is the SoC that Apple uses is more modern and compact than OMAP. OMAP3 isn't the best processor to use for a watch. I'm sure if we spend some time going back and forth we will identify at least one or two more modern processors that beat OMAP3 on efficiency, size, AND performance. I don't thin Motorola should be skimping on the processor for their first watch, if they are trying to convince us its a premium product that we should feel proud to wear on our wrists. People see watches as prestige items, and they will pay more for a well constructed and designed device. There's already enough competition in the plastic trashy wrist-wear segment.
    - ansible 12y ago